you say that love's tough, are you sure?
by strangervision
Summary: Natasha gets jealous, but doesn't quite know it. Clint figures it out.


**here is unconsciouslyjealous!Natasha fic. I just really wanted jealous Natasha, ok, and then I thought about how hard it was to do without her being too OOC, so I tried to work something out and I hope it was successful. Concrit appreciated though : Also I need to develop an OC for her to be jealous over, lol, not good for it to always be Bobbi Morse. I have nothing against Morse, by the way, she's just the most convenient character and I know that sounds like lazy writing but that's really the only part I'm lazy about. _(I also twiddled a little with the timeline, hope it's not too off)._ Here you go! Title from Kate Voegele's "On Top of the World", although the song in its entirety does not represent where this fic goes.**

* * *

**You say that love's tough, are you sure?**

In between her mission at Stark Industries and his impending one in New Mexico, there's a gap of roughly a month, maybe less. A week into this break, Clint goes off on a simple, solo mission, accompanying a newbie. He's the eyes in the sky and the new girl (Bobbi Morse) is the undercover. It's what they've always done, a routine they move through in tandem, except now it's someone else. Natasha can't be bothered about that. It's almost tradition now for them to be leading rookies, since they're senior agents and two of the most skilled ones around.

He comes back with a clean bullet wound through his shoulder (it's a good thing the mission is New Mexico mostly will entail watching and no heavy fire, barring all mishaps) and a bruised sternum. When she steps out of the training room that day, Fury tells her he's been hurt and that he's fine, but that he's asking for her. She raises an eyebrow at him, maybe more for show than anything. She's not surprised, really, they're each other's constants and it's nice to see your stronghold around when you get back from a mission that went to shit. She makes her way to the medical ward, which smells like bleach and hostile sheets, and she stops by the doorframe when she sees a slim frame seated beside his bed. He's sleeping, Natasha knows this by the way his chest is rising and falling calmly, only stilted because of his injury. The lady has a head of blonde hair; Natasha thinks distantly of the time her own hair was bleached blonde for a mission, and how he'd looked so appraisingly at her. She shakes her head with a rueful smile. It's good that someone's watching over him. She'll come back later. As softly as she came, she leaves, and she can tell how new the girl is just by the way she doesn't notice that anyone else has ever been there.

* * *

The new ones always have something of a crush on Clint. He's too lovely, too nice to them. She doesn't let herself think of when he saved her and something bloomed inside (the first living thing since when she was a child and did her last ballet lesson) and never died. She knows it's more than a small crush, but she owes him a debt and that's as far as she will ever go with this line of thought.

Physical training is done for the day, and it's early afternoon, so Natasha grabs a quick bite before heading to the shooting range with her favourite gun. It feels like a warm hand in hers, and where others would feel so fondly about an old glove or a pair of worn-in boots, she feels so about her guns and knives and weapons. It's who she is. Who she is also is someone who doesn't allow herself to feel unless she can manipulate those feelings with her head. Her training doesn't leave her. And since she's never been taught to be a child, she has never been and never will be one. Children, most of the time, own things and feel things she doesn't allow herself to have.

* * *

She goes through the same routine the next few days: train, eat, shoot, read, check up with Fury or Coulson if she's needed, back to her bunk to rest if she's not. Resting, though, usually means honing her _persuasion_ (manipulative) skills. It continues, regardless of what she hears through the pipeline (from Coulson, sometimes Fury or Hill) about Clint asking for her. She knows that he's in someone else's care, and whether that's good care or not, SHIELD will make sure he's okay anyway. She tells herself partners means it's okay even if she gives him space, means that he doesn't always need her but that they'll be there when they need each other. She doesn't stop to give thought to whether or not she needs him (he has always grounded her, and without him she goes overboard with routine and training and killing, but that thought isn't in her mind right now).

The day he's discharged, about a week later, she's already found out that Fury mandated the extended stay in the ward because he wants him in tip-top condition for New Mexico. She's in her bunk, reading through a collection of poetry by Anne Sexton (the woman has some dark imagery that Natasha likes, although no one even would suspect that Natasha can appreciate poetry; it's part of what she picked up learning to be a top-notch spy) when her lock snicks. She calmly looks up from the book, already knowing who it is by his nerve to pick her lock. When he slides in and locks the door back behind him, he levels her gaze with one that is steady. She knows the look on his face is one he has when he's being a sniper on a mission.

"Clint," she acknowledges softly, before turning her eyes back to the words on the page about courage.

"I asked to see you," he says quietly, and there's an edge in his voice that grates on her nerves a little.

"And I'm supposed to be at your beck and call?" her reply is cool and unfazed, and she never lifts her gaze from the book. The words are going in, intellectual knowledge, and she forces herself to think of form – the enjambment, the line breaks, and the images used, (_you drank their acid/and concealed it_) but already her mind is wandering, and she can barely stop herself from adding, "Besides, you were already looked after,"

There is a pause, like the motes of dust in the air drifting, the moment before a gunshot goes.

"I wanted to see you, Nat,"

He only calls her 'Nat' when he's worried about her or anxious. It's _Tasha_ or _Tash_ when he's feeling tender, or concerned, and it is never _Natasha_ unless he's frustrated with her or wants the attention she's not giving him.

She keeps her lips firmed together and acts like it's all nothing, and he's in front of her now, slipping the book out of her hands and sinking into the side of the bed beside her.

"Natasha," he says, and her head is going _well shit, I'm screwed_. She sighs and looks at him. Her eyes are dead and tired, her voice weary as she replies, "What?"

"Is something wrong?" he asks, and she furrows her brows because she's thinking about it, but there honestly isn't anything wrong. She doesn't feel like there is. So she shakes her head, but she knows he doesn't buy it just by the way his lips thin as he presses them together. This is when she gets a little worried, because sometimes Clint knows when something is wrong and she doesn't. It's simple, she doesn't allow herself to feel the emotions, but Clint can tell when something needs to be handled. Most of the time, he ends up being able to discern when she has to talk about something.

It's like a stand-off, the way they're staring at each other, until something seems to click inside him. There's a glint in his eyes when he says, "Her name is Bobbi,"

She knows he's talking about the blonde, the pretty lady who was sitting beside him, but she doesn't know why. She lifts an eyebrow in question, and then he starts to ramble about how she got him coffee and water and made sure he didn't shift around too much because he'd saved her life – or her shoulder, anyway, and taken a shot for her and –

Natasha's tummy is clenching around something she doesn't know is there, and she shifts slightly to disguise how everything inside her is going stiff. He pauses then to look at her, and she parts her lips to say, "You took a bullet for a rookie?"

He's looking at her carefully, watching for anything, and it makes her very uncomfortable, so she gets up from the bed to put her book carefully on the table nearby. When she turns to face him, he's still watching her and she runs a frustrated hand through her short hair.

"We don't do that. We just – we don't take bullets for other people! It's not like that, you know that people die all the time and you can't just try to die in their place, Clint!"

He knows she's trying to keep her voice level but there's a desperation in her tone he hasn't quite heard in awhile, and he thinks he's beginning to figure out what it is.

"I would do it for you," he says, aggravatingly plain and transparent with his words, and nothing betrays her frustration but the sideways glance she casts at her own hand beside her.

"But you – we're partners and I wouldn't let you – I'd do the same – "

"Tasha," he says softly, and her gaze snaps up, hard and angry, maybe a little alarmed at his use of that name because what is there to be tender about? – "She's just someone I'm training, you know,"

She nods, but this time she can't get a read on him because he's saying things that are frustratingly plain and nearly dumb and it's enough to set off warning bells in her head.

"I think you're jealous," is the next phrase that cuts through the air, and she scoffs at him before snapping, pinning him to the bed with a forearm. She damn near snarls in his face, "What are you talking about, Barton? I don't feel, and you know that,"

He's calm as he looks up at her, "No, you do feel, you just don't feel with your heart and when you feel odd things you shut them out. I'm your partner, Nat, or have you forgotten that?"

Her eyes are burning from being kept so wide and fierce, but her stomach is churning again and she releases him, backing away and out of the room, slamming the door behind her.

* * *

He's cursing silently and pacing the room when she comes back from her run, and he looks up at her with an apology in his gaze that she ignores.

"Natasha," he starts, stepping towards her, but she side-steps him and disappears into the adjoined bathroom for a shower. When she gets out, he's sitting at the edge of her bed waiting.

She takes a glance at him through the locks hanging beside her face and she knows that this is it then, they have to talk about what she's felt (more than owing him her life, because god knows they're even on that debt now but not quits yet, never quits) since the day he saved her from more than just death.

She leans against the dresser across from him again, pulling her lower lip between her teeth as she looks at him.

"It's just – you're not blind, Clint. You know how all the newbies have the hots for you and then you go and be nice to them. You take a bullet for one and that's it, she's in love with you and wants your babies."

He can tell that she's skirting around the edges of this topic because she doesn't want to talk about it, but god, he wants to. He wants to talk about them and what this more-than-friendship partnership is, and he wants to talk about his feelings and her feelings, even the ones she doesn't know she has.

"Call of duty, Tasha," he says simply, and she frowns a little before shrugging and telling him he can do what he wants. The way her muscles are tensing, he knows that she's going to shut off again and walk away, and just as she turns her face he says, "Besides, it's only you. It's only ever been you,"

He hopes she gets what he's trying to say, because this is like one of his arrows with the detonating tips. He could very well push and shoot it into her flesh, but then the explosion would just break her and he knows that if that happens, she'll build herself up stronger (as always after a fight) and shut him out. He leaves the tip touching the shell he wants to break past, then, and hopes that it won't backfire too badly or hurt her.

She pulls in a breath and holds it.

"What are you – what?" she asks, and her voice is steady and unwavering but he knows how her insides must be trembling just the tiniest bit.

" 'M falling in love with you, Tasha," he says, shrugging a little and not quite meeting her gaze, "Have been since I tried to save you and you let me. Anyone else doesn't mean shit."

She's looking at him like it's April Fool's day and she's expecting him to pull out a tooting horn and a clown's nose somewhere and stick both into different orifices on her face, so he steels himself and meets her gaze firmly.

"I mean it. That's why I always want to see you first after solo missions."

Her lips are quirking in the middle and at the right corner like she wants to say something. It's not a smile because her brows are knitted together in the center, and she's never looked more beautiful, more _hers_, and he gives her a sad smile.

"Sorry," he mumbles, "I just needed to tell you, but I'll leave you alone now."

Before he can firm his hands against the mattress and push himself up to leave, she's sliding into his lap and pressing her lips against his, the crease between her brows still there. Her lips are pressing urgently against his, and he slides a hand into her damp, fire-red hair and thinks of how this detonation was spot on, like every mission, but he's proud of it because unlike every mission, this is Natasha.

When she pulls back, she still looks confused and uncertain.

"You – you never said anything," she manages, breathing a little harder than usual as she searches his eyes.

"I didn't think I had to – I'm always so obvious about these things. You never are, and just now when I said you were jealous I was just hedging my bets, I was hoping more than anything – "

"Shut up," she commands, near breathless, and it's strange because he's the one who just did a monologue, "I think I was a teeny bit jealous,"

It's so unlike her to admit something like that, and they're both staring, wide-eyed, at each other, before he decides that he wants to kiss her, and he leans in and does just that. It's amazing, then, better than anything he's imagined, because he's never kissed her and they've never done so much as the occasional hug or comforting embrace, but now she's letting him kiss her breathless and the sheer thought of that sends something burning in the pit of his stomach. She's sliding her tongue against his lips then, and then against his tongue, and he angles his head over hers and she shifts in his lap. The small breath that escapes her mouth when he brushes against her turns into a whimper against his lips and he gets a hand around the small of her back, holding her closer. Her arms curl around his shoulders and her fingers are spearing into his hair so that he can't pull away (he would _never_, because he's wanted to kiss her since forever).

When they finally break apart she's looking at him like she's discovered something new inside herself, and then she buries her head in his shoulder and gasps his name.

It's not an _I love you_, not what he told her, but he knows she's never said those words, and he doesn't want to push because she'll come around and return his arrows to him when she's ready. She can keep his goddamn arrows; he doesn't need them if he has her.

"Thank you," she breathes, and it's one of them, the one with the grappling hook that he shot into her skin a long time ago to keep himself afloat. He gets it back from her but it only means that now she's clinging to him too, and he knows that she's still scared of what that means, and that they still have a long way to go and so much to sort out, but he's grateful for it. She says _thank you_, and he hears the words in it she can't and won't say, so he holds her tight against him and smiles into her hair.


End file.
